An 'Ethnic' Face in the Chinese Government

Cui Yuying: on her way to Lhasa?

The post below was written in 2015.
Since then, Cui Yuying was appointed Chairperson and Party Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
According to The Tibetan Journal in January 2018: "A woman politician of Tibetan origin has been appointed for the first time to the post of Secretary of Communist Party of China (CPC) for the province of Fujian [not Party Secretary of Fujian, but CPPCC's Party Secretary] , a state of economic significance for China. This appointment marked the first minority ethnic woman to be appointed to such an inner sanctum of political decision making."

It is indeed a big job, though not really a 'decision making' one but Fujian is an important province for future promotion.
If it is confirmed that Lobsang Gyatsen is out of the way, Cui could be transferred back to Tibet in   the near future; she served there till 2011.

My 2015 post
Madam Cui Yuying is one of the few ‘ethnic’ Tibetans who today serves in a high position in Communist Party of China.
Born in 1958 in Changle County of Shandong Province, she joined the Communist Party in 1980, and graduated from Tibet Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College with a Bachelor Degree in 1982.
After occupying different junior posts in Tibet (see Cui’s CV at the end of this post), she served as the Director in the Publicity Department of CPC’s Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee from 2006 to 2011.
In December 2011, she was transferred as Deputy Director of the Central Office for Overseas Publicity in Beijing; from 2012 to 2015, she became Deputy Director of the Information Office of the State Council.
In February this year, she took a new important assignment as Deputy Director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, a ministerial level post.
Soon after getting her new job, Xinhua reported that Cui Yuying went to Mexico. 

The news agency commented: “The public has been noticing the increase in the ratio of high-level female officials in China’s central government departments.”
“With the present promotion, Cui became the sole vice minister of minority groups in her department, the Central Committee Publicity Department,” says Xinhua.
The Beijing Youth Daily noted that there were at least 15 minister-ranking female officials among the 25 ministries directly run by the State Council. The number of female ministry-level officials is the highest in the Ministry of Education and the National Health and Family Planning Commission (each has three female high-level officials).
I earlier mentioned on this blog, the name of Sun Chunlan, Tianjin's former Party Secretary and now member of the Politburo; she recently replaced the disgraced Ling Jihua, as Director of the United Front Work Department (responsible for the Tibetan affairs, amongst others things).
Cui Yuying is however in a special position, being a woman and from an 'ethnic' background.
Xinhua explains that, with the founding of the ‘New China’ in 1949, “came the proclamation that China's female populace will be given equal rights as men in all aspects -- economic, cultural, social and political -- hence, the large probabilities of such increase in the number of high-rank female government officials.”
This was never done. The 1949 resolution sounded promising, but 'ethnic' officials and female cadres rarely made it to the top in Communist China.
And as mentioned in my post on the ‘ethnic officers in the PLA’, when they made it, the Tibetans or Uyghurs never used their position to be a bridge between the ‘ethnic’ populations and the Mandarins in Beijing.
Note that a Mongol, Yang Jing is a member of the powerful Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, while Nur Bebri, a former Deputy Secretary of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region is now Director of the National Energy Administration and Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission. [Bekri has since then be jailed for corruption].

Cui Yuying in action
 In May 2013, Bhuchung K. Tsering of International Campaign for Tibet mentioned that during an encounter with some visiting Indian and Nepali journalists in Lhasa, Cui told them: “Foreign media might have been spreading rumors that Tibetan people want repatriation of Dalai Lama. But this is not the situation. Our investigation has shown that Tibetans do not want to see Dalai Lama coming back.”
That is obviously why she has been posted in the Ministry of Propaganda/Information.
Beijing believes that if a ‘Tibetan face’ says this, it sounds truer.
As Bhuchung Tsering explained: “Leaving aside the issue of politics, it is not rocket science to get an idea of the aspirations of the Tibetan people vis-à-vis the Dalai Lama. The historical and spiritual bond between the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people go beyond the birth of the People’s Republic of China. …the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people are inseparable, to those who understand Tibetan culture and tradition.”
Bhuchung Tsering further argued: “Despite China’s claims that the Tibetan people enjoy religious freedom, the Chinese authorities have virtually banned the Tibetans from displaying portraits of the Dalai Lama in their houses, as is the Tibetan spiritual tradition.”
His conclusions speak of “the tunnel vision and the shortsightedness by which the Chinese authorities have framed their Tibet policy so far,” he added: “Rather than looking at this Tibetan tradition positively and finding ways to respect it, the Chinese authorities have chosen to project the Dalai Lama as an adversary.”
Last year (in 2014), Madam Cui opened the infamous ‘2014 Forum on the Development of Tibet, China’, organized in Lhasa with a few foreign fans of the Communist Party of China.
The ‘2014 Forum’ was jointly organized by the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China (The Cabinet) and the so-called People's Government of Tibet Autonomous Region. The official ‘invitees’ had no choice, but to agree to the terms dictated by the Party in Beijing. One can’t bite the hand which feeds you!
Cui Yuying, while inaugurating the ‘Forum’, used the old argument that only Beijing wants modernity for Tibet. The same argument was used in the 1950s, when Mao and his colleagues pretended that the Dalai Lama did not want ‘reforms’ and therefore Tibet needed to be ‘liberated’.
Cui insisted that for 'some' (read, the Dalai Lama): “Tibet should remain primitive and any development of the region equals the annihilation of Tibetan culture and the region's environment.” She added: “To their understanding, Tibetans should always ride yaks and live in tents.”
According to Xinhua, during the two days, representatives, including scholars, journalists, politicians and entrepreneurs, “voiced their understanding of Tibet's development”.
Like for the PLA ‘ethnic’ officers, the presence of Party cadres in the State Council does not help much to find a solution to the Tibetan issue, on the contrary!
That is a pity!

Cui Yuying wearing a Tibetan dress during a visit to Germany

Here is Cui Yuying’s CV

Cui Yuying 崔 玉英
Presently: Deputy Director of the CPC Central Committee's Publicity Department
Born: 1958
Birthplace: Shandong Province, Changle County

• 2018.01—Chairperson of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)  and Secretary of the Party Leadership Group
• Representatives of the 17th and 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. 
• On January 29, 2018, the first meeting of the 12th Fujian Provincial Committee of the CPPCC elected Cui Yuying as the chairperson of the Fujian Provincial CPPCC. 
• 2011.12—2014.04, Deputy Director of the External Propaganda Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Deputy Director of the Information Office of the State Council 
• 2014.04-2015.01, member of the Ministry of Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, deputy director of the State Council Information Office 
• 2015.01—2018.01, Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, Deputy Director of the Information Office of the State Council 
• 2006—2011 Director, CPC, Autonomous Regional Committee, Publicity Department Tibet Autonomous Region
• 2002—2006 Vice-Chairman, Autonomous Region People's Government Tibet Autonomous Region
• 2002—2004 Student, CPC, Central Committee, Central Party School (Active-on-Duty)
• 1999—2000 Secretary, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch CPC, Party Committee Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1999—2002 General Manager, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1997—1999 Deputy Secretary, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch CPC, Party Committee Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1996—1997 Deputy Secretary, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch CPC, Leading Party Group Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1996—1999 Deputy General Manager, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1995—1996 Director, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch, Vehicle Insurance Division Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1992—1995 Assistant Director, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch, Business Division Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1987—1992 Staff Member, People's Insurance Company of China, Tibet Branch, Business Division Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1986—1987 Cadre, Economic Committee Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1982—1985 Teacher, Tibet Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College Tibet Autonomous Region
• 1978—1982 Student, Tibet Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College Tibet Autonomous Region